Filmland - The Star Wars/Indiana Jones/E.T. Shared Movie-Verse

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And so May 4^th is upon us once again, the one day out of the year we choose to celebrate the multimedia mega-phenomenon that is Star Wars.  Admittedly you probably aren’t reading this on one of the 364 days that doesn’t sound vaguely like “may the force be with you” but given that this is the Internet celebrating Star Wars is pretty much always in fashion.  This is even truer in the wake of 2015’s franchise revitalizing film Force Awakens, and with the Last Jedi on the way and Rogue One a decent success in its own right it looks like we’re never going to run out of Star Wars to celebrate. 

It’s not just movies that've been good to the Disney era of Star Wars either but also comics, with Marvel’s excellent Darth Vader ongoing series and the fairly popular Rebels TV show making a significant impact.  Actually, Rebels is the bit of recent Star Wars material that I’ve elected to zero in on today as part of a look at an emerging shared-universe theory going all the way back to 1981 and stretching throughout some of the most popular films of the ‘80s.  Let’s talk about the Spielberg-verse. 

Static Thoughts - '80s Influences on Stranger Things

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Edited by Robert Beach 

The show of the summer has finally arrived. Surprisingly, it was a sleeper hit from Netflix that no one had ever heard of called Stranger Things.  Pretty much coming out of nowhere, Stranger Things won over audiences with its winning combination of small town stories, kid adventure tropes, horror-inflected sci-fi, and a smooth, creamy layer of ‘80s nostalgia so thick you could cut it with a spork.  

That last bit is what brings us here today as I maintain one of the best things about Stranger Things is being able to pick out the deliberate homages to 1980s pop culture and touchstones. Some of this comes in the form of direct shoutouts and references while others formed through a repackaged version of classic scenes from various movies of the time.  With that said, let’s look at the top 10 1980s influences on Stranger Things (and one ‘90s influence, but we’ll get to that in due course.) Needless to say, spoilers to follow. 

7 Films That Could Use A Female-Led Reboot

I've got another listicle up for the fine folks at Laser Time Podcast, this time going through all the movies I think could really benefit from a female-led reboot ala Ghostbusters & Roadhouse, read the full article here:

http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/2015/09/23/7-films-that-could-use-a-female-led-reboot/